Picture This
by ManofManyHats
Summary: Zuko's always hated portrait days. Or maybe it was just the people in them.


**AN: Quick, messy oneshot to prove that I'm not dead. I've actually written a shit ton these last few weeks, but nothing that can be shared yet :(**

* * *

"Stay still, Zuko," his mother says as she smooths over the fold of his shirt. "You want to look good for the portrait, don't you?"

"I don't care," Zuko whines.

"It's a special day, Zuko."

It doesn't look very special. Servants and artists fly around the room, fixing backdrops, setting lighting, readying the easel, while the artist, who looks so old that Zuko thinks he could blow dust off him, sizes up the room. Zuko doesn't look around the room too much. He'll see enough of it in the next few hours.

"Why does it have to take so long?" Zuko whines again.

A hush falls over the room as the door opens, and his father stands in the doorway.

"Are you not ready yet?" he rumbles, less of a question and more of a statement.

"No, my lord," his mother says, hands still fixing the collar of Zuko's robe.

"Then hurry up. You're lucky I made time for this today. Don't waste it."

They're set up very quickly after that. Azula shows up from spirits knows where, somehow looking more prim and perfect than she usually did. The attendants bring out two chairs for their parents to sit in and tell him and Azula to sit themselves on the floor.

At least he isn't standing, he tells himself, but he can already feel his calves start to burn under his weight. They micromanage him some more, tell him to put his hands in his lap, to turn slightly to the side, to keep his head straight towards the front of the room. Somehow, he ends up at his father's side. They tell his father to put his hand on Zuko's shoulder, and he can't help but tense. Rarely was he ever in his father's presence for more than a few minutes. Now he'll be spending the next few hours with his figure looming over him, weight of his hand on Zuko's shoulder.

Happy enough with the scene, the painter begins. Zuko needs to go to the bathroom maybe 30 minutes in, but he doesn't make a sound. No one makes a sound. The silence makes the room seem stuffier, the stiffness in his back burn worse, the weight on his shoulder heavier. Tick, tock, the minutes dribble by. He counts and recounts the tiles on the floor, stares at the torch sconce on the other side of the room for so long the light makes white spots in his eyes. And tick tock goes the incessant clock, though it feels like time isn't moving.

By the end of it, the cough Zuko had been stifling felt like it was tearing his throat and his legs wobble when he stands to go to the bathroom.

When he returns, his father's gone from the room, and his mother waves for him to look at the portrait. It isn't done yet, the artist would take it in for the next few weeks before completion, but a basic rendering is still there.

Azula and his mother sit to the left, regal as members of the royal family should be. His father looks austere as ever as, looming over Zuko.

Zuko knows it isn't the final portrait, but he can't help but grimace. The artist had told him to smile a few times, but Zuko could never hold it for long. In the end, it looks like the painter gave up on trying to capture the real deal and had painted someone else's smile on his face. He looks uncomfortable; unnatural. Shoulders squashed in too tight, hands wrung together not knowing what to do with them, eyes dark and empty.

His mother says he looks handsome. Zuko doesn't see it.

* * *

Zuko's eyes have glazed over as he sits on a lone stool, facing the wall above the painter's head. If there's anything worse than having a portrait taken, he thinks to himself for maybe the fifth time that hour, it's taking a portrait alone.

 _It's for the nation_ , someone had told him, _they need a portrait of their new crown prince._ Someone higher up had ordered it, maybe the sages, maybe the Firelord. Zuko doesn't say no out of fear it was the latter.

Azula had gone first, her portrait set against another easel at the back of the room. Couldn't someone put it away somewhere? It's bad enough he has to sit there for hours, but now he has to deal with Azula's painted eyes staring down at him. Mocking him, as if it knew that Zuko's portrait would never be as perfect as it.

The artist sets his brush down and raises a gnarled finger to beckon him forward. Loathing to see himself in portraits, Zuko considers leaving without looking, but curiosity gets the better of him.

Maybe it's just him. Maybe it's just Zuko who thinks he looks awkward and stiff in every painting he's ever been in. Or maybe he was just awkward and stiff in life. Both are reasonable claims, but neither are helping his case right now.

Alone, with no one else to divert attention, Zuko thinks his usually gracelessness is magnified. He hadn't known what to do with his hands, and even though they weren't in the painting, the odd set of his arms showed it. He thinks one of his ears is higher up than the other. His hair seems too loose in it's ponytail.

That was the portrait that would be hung up on people's mantles, in school lobbies and government sitting rooms. The reminder sets a deeper frown on his face.

Azula waltzes in and stares over his shoulder while Zuko was too busy mentally listing off what he detested about the portrait to notice.

"You look like a girl," Azula snickers before skipping out the door.

Zuko reddens, shouts at his sister to shut up, and stomps off. He really hates portrait days.

* * *

"Is this really necessary?" Zuko asks, though he was already fitted in formal robes, hair bound in a topknot.

"Of course it is, Zuzu," his sister smiles, "Father agreed with me immediately when I told him we should get a new portrait done of the family. It's been three years since we've been together. We should commemorate it."

 _While it lasts,_ is the unsaid end of her sentence. That sets Zuko on edge, even before his father walks through the door and takes his seat in the center of the room. Zuko and Azula take their place on either side of him.

Something about this time is different. He's used to the usual dread of portrait days, but something about this time is unbearable, and he feels it before even the first minute passes. Even on his father's right side, he feels out of place. The slight smile he wears on his face strains his entire body.

The session goes quickly. Perhaps the painter wanted to be over with it as much as Zuko did. They gather around the portrait to examine his work.

Anyone else looking at it would say it was the perfect picture of what a royal family should be. Mighty and proud, his father sits in the center with his golden crown glinting atop his head. Azula stands as a mirror of their father, eyes piercing through the canvas. The epitome of nobility, anyone would say, but Zuko sees right through it.

At his father's side, Zuko stands with one hand clutching on the chair as if he would fall without it. The edges of his smile look like a grimace. On his face, his scar is stark and angry red. It looks out of place. As if the painter questioned whether to draw it out at all, and plastered it on his face last minute.

His father praises the artist. Azula smiles and says she wants the portrait hung up outside her hall.

Zuko scowls. He thinks he hates this one most.

* * *

Once he's Firelord, people stop asking him for portraits. They know if he wants one, he'll ask for one, and if he didn't, don't ask for it.

The next time he gets a proper portrait done, years later, it's much different from all the other times. The noise level alone sets it apart.

"Do I look good? I look good right?" Sokka asks above all the commotion, because of course he asks.

Toph tells him he looks perfect. Sokka takes it to heart. No one corrects him.

Zuko's not sure who commissioned the painting, maybe Sokka - probably Sokka - maybe Aang. All Zuko knows is that he was dragged out of his office for an 'illustration of good will between the nations'. A group picture with Aang, Katara, Toph and Sokka is apparently what that translates to.

"You're going to need to pick poses. Pick something you won't regret," Zuko tells the room. He thinks they deserve a fair warning for the next hours to come.

Toph plants herself in the center of the frame, "Let's get going! I'm a busy woman, people."

"Your hair's all in your face," Aang tells her.

"I know what I'm doing, Twinkle Toes."

Zuko doesn't say anything about how tiring holding her arm out like that is going to get, or how heavy that armor she's wearing will feel by the first hour, because well… Toph knows what she's doing.

The rest of them take their places around her. Aang wraps an arm around Katara's waist, stating that there was 'no way he could regret standing next to Katara'. Sokka says there's a lot of ways you can regret it, and then instantly regrets saying that because Katara has her water whip out now. Sokka scoots as far away from her as she can.

Zuko quietly shuffles away from Aang. Not out of ill will. He was just miffed that Aang had gotten taller than him and does not want that fact committed on canvas. Someone's hand falls on his shoulder.

"You're gonna keep that up for this entire thing?" Zuko asks the man at his side.

Sokka smirks, "One hand on the sword, one hand on a buddy. How about you, are you just gonna cross your arms and look grumpy?"

"Have to stay true to life, right?"

When the session ends, the clock shows that he'd just gotten through the longest portrait session he'd ever been in. It certainly hadn't felt like it.

For once, it hadn't been silent. They talked and talked, about everything and nothing, and had to stop themselves from shaking with laughter more than once. Toph and Sokka had instantly took advantage of the fact that, no matter what they said, no one could move a muscle to react.

("Hair loopies? Really Katara, in this day and age?"

"You know Twinkle Toes, it's nice to know that even after all these years, you still stand with the gait of a baby turtleduck."

"What's with all the gold today, Zuko? And three swords? Overcompensating much.")

There was rarely a silent moment. At least until the artist got down to the faces. Then the room would go quiet, except of course, someone bursting out in giggles every few minutes because apparently the silence was just _so_ funny. Zuko'll have to thank the artist profusely for her patience later.

They crowd around the canvas, Zuko forgetting momentarily how much he wants to flay two of their own alive.

"How do I look?" Toph asks.

"You look great," Katara tells her, "I think you'd like it."

"Mean? Menacing? 'Would beat you up in a dark alley' kinda look?"

"I think you got that down," she laughs.

An audible gasps escapes Sokka's mouth. "I look... amazing. The lighting, the pose, the angle… Just look at it! Oh yeah, you guys look good too, I guess."

"You do look good," Aang says, as if Sokka needed a bigger head. "We all do."

Zuko gazes at the portrait and can't help but agree. Aang and Katara stand together, grins wide on their faces, while Toph stands besides them, daunting, just as she'd wanted. Sokka gives them a side smile, one hand resting on Zuko's shoulder. Zuko himself looks straight ahead, the golden lining of his clothes glinting even on the paper.

He's scowling, or at least trying to. One side of his mouth turns up in a grin, just like it does now in real life. Zuko doesn't think he looks half bad.

* * *

Zuko thinks he looks like an idiot.

"Keep those arms up, Zuko! You ancestors might have been evil or whatever, but they didn't have droopy arms!"

With a huff, he raises his arms and adds a little more energy to the flames he flares in his hands. Zuko wishes he could go back in time and burn whoever's idea it was to have Firelords hold their hands out in their royal portraits. Right now, he could settle on setting Sokka on fire.

The man ambles around behind the painter, remarking on the portrait, cracking jokes for them to roll their eyes at, and ordering Zuko around. Being the 'artist' of the group, Sokka had wanted to have a hand in Zuko's portrait.

"Consider it my gift to you," Sokka had said to him.

The others are around as well, but none stay as long. Aang pops in, tries to mimic Zuko's pose for a while, and gives up when his firebending sputters out. Katara and Toph visit in the middle of his attempt, Katara to say that the painting was going great, and Toph to say that they both look stupid. None of them envy the amount of quality time Zuko's getting with Sokka.

Zuko admires the painter's patience at having to deal with the man. Even now, she listens intently as Sokka mumbles instructions in her ear. She nods, adds a note on her canvas, and lays down her brush.

Sokka waves at him offhandedly, "Ok, you're all done. Now shoo."

"Don't I get to see it?" he asks, massaging his stiff muscles.

"No way! Not until the big unveiling." Sokka all but pushes him out the door. "Now you go on your way. And bring in the dragon for the character study!"

That's the last he hears of the portrait for the next few months. Not until he's standing in the Royal Gallery, a white tarp over a section of the wall being pulled down to unveil the newest edition to the the hall of Firelords. Zuko only allows himself a quick glance, a flash of red and gold, before he has to turn to face his guests. He shakes hands with the painters, says thank you to all that had taken apart in it, accepts congratulations from officials attending. Sokka calls it his magnum opus, even though he didn't paint it.

It's only later, when he's alone, that Zuko takes a good look at it.

Some things are expected - the golden sun shining behind his head, red flames cradled in his hands. Other things are all his own. The patterns behind him spread out in the shape of a lotus. A city rises at his feet, perhaps the Fire Nation, perhaps Republic City, though it speaks the same message either way; growth, prosperity, peace. A dragon flies above him - so that's what they'd wanted Druk for.

He looks just below that, to his face. He'd thought that the scar would be what would set him apart the most, but finds the assumption wrong. The mark is there, a muted red, but the asymmetry seems almost befitting. No, what's perhaps the biggest difference is something quite small - he's smiling. Not an Aang smile, it's barely a grin, but definitely not a frown like those that are etched in every other portrait.

Zuko wonders what the thinking behind that was. Then he remembers the session he'd spent for this portrait, how Sokka had been waltzing around like he owned the place, how the others had popped in every now and then to banter, how an amused smirk was never far from his lips. Perhaps he hadn't given them much material for a frown.

Zuko thinks he doesn't hate it. Might even like it, as much as he can when it's his stupid face on the portrait. As he walks out of the Royal Gallery, Zuko thinks he's quite happy with how it all turned out.

* * *

"Stay still, Izumi," Mai tells their daughter, straightening the collar of her shirt.

"Ugh," the girl groans. She usually isn't one to whine, but the hours of getting her outfit fitted and setting up has worn her down. "This is such a waste of time,"

Zuko smiles as they come to stand by him. "Is it? I get to spend time with you two, so it can't be a waste."

His daughter snorts unbelievingly but smiles anyway and Mai rolls her eyes at him for being such a sop. Zuko kisses them both, committing himself to what he'd just said.

The attendants open up the curtains, blasting in as much light in the room as they could. They're set up, all standing, Mai and Zuko together with Izumi squirming between them.

"You're worse than your father was," Mai teases.

"It just takes so long," Izumi whines some more, as the attendants fidget them a final time, telling them to look ahead and stay still.

Zuko's lays his hand on his daughter's shoulder.

"You should be grateful then," Zuko tells her, turning to look at the glass eye of the camera lens. "Back in my day, we used to take portraits."


End file.
